EDITORIAL COMMENTS: Who knows where the time goes?

“I have no thought of time. For who knows where
the time goes? â€” Sandy Denny, singer/songwriter of
the British folk-rockers, Fairport Convention

Once upon a time there was a man
who asked himself, ‘Where have
all the days and nights of my life
gone?’” begins William Maxwell’s
short story, “All the Days and Nights.” One afternoon,
the man sets out to find all that he seems to
have lost, not telling a soul. A night passes, days,
weeks, months. A year to the day he disappeared
he walks back into his home. “I’m too tired to talk
about it,” he tells his wife. That night in his sleep
he says aloud, “They’re all there. Each day is connected
to the one before and the one that comes
after, like bars of music.” The next morning, she
cannot make him realize he had ever been away.

So it goes with time. Maybe it is all an illusion.
Slippery and elusive, we never seem to be able to
get enough of it. In 2008, the Families and Work
Institute surveyed more than 2,000 employees
nationwide: 75 percent said they don’t have enough
time for their children; 61 percent didn’t have
enough time for their partner or spouse; and 59
percent didn’t have enough time for themselves.
Employees are experiencing a “time famine,”
reported the Families and Work Institute.

Where’d the time go?

Extended hours

So are our readers. In September we conducted, for
the 26th consecutive year, ISHN’s “State of the EHS
Nation White Paper” survey. In 2010, almost half (49
percent) of you expect your work hours to increase.
Only seven percent foresee your hours decreasing.

Who are you fortunate few, anyway?

Since 17 percent of respondents are age 60+,
maybe those seven percent are retiring next year.
Or since nearly a third of respondents say they’ll
be more worried about job security next year, perhaps
some foresee the axeman cometh.

With workloads piling higher, it goes hand-in-hand
that job distress will intensify. Almost six in
ten (59 percent) expect to be even more stressed out
in 2010. Six percent see less distress in their
days ahead. They must be the same ones whose
work hours will decline.

Working longer and harder squeezes free time
out of life’s equation, distressing us more. This
perverse logic not only “seriously undermines the
health and well-being” of employees, says the
Families and Work Institute, but has a number of
threatening safety ramifications.

Time-wasting activities

Think about it. You, and/or your employees,
supervisors, and managers, all sense “not having
enough time.” One practical outcome: employees
seek shortcuts. Supervisors cut back on safety
talks and training. Managers shove safety issues
into Stephen R. Covey’s “Not Important” and “Not
Urgent” box in his Time Management Matrix,
along with other busy work and pleasant but time-wasting
activities.

Speaking of “not important” and “not urgent,”
fully one in three White Paper respondents predict
decreasing EHS resource support â€” budget and
staffing â€” in 2010. Only 11 percent see support
increasing. For the rest, it will remain unchanged.

In the past 12 months, only one in four White Paper
respondents reported management leadership support
for safety and health increased; only 18 percent saw
an increase in supervisor support, and 17 percent said
employee engagement in safety and health increased.

One in four reported employee involvement
declining; one in five saw supervisor support on the
wane last year, and 18 percent said management
leadership for safety and health took a dip.

To be sure, the “time famine” isn’t the only factor
here. Bedeviling many of you more directly is the “dollar
drought.” More than half of all White Paper respondents
(52 percent) work in companies where sales and
profits dropped in the past year. About one in five (22
percent) managed to benefit from a better bottom line.

Individuals at risk

Time pressures will test any organization’s cultural
values for safety and health. The risk to individual
safety and health, on and off the job, is equally problematic.
An employee who feels she or he doesn’t
have enough time for their kids is likely a distracted
employee. You see them on the road everywhere at
rush hour, morning and night, barking instructions
into their cells, tracking down their kids and spouses,
lining up logistics, getting the kids from here to
there, from practice to rehearsal. Schedules, reminders,
to-do lists race through their minds.

Of course this scattershot lack of focus and need
to multi-task creates hazards on the road, at home,
and in the workplace.

With less time, we try to get from point A (say
work) to point B (home) faster, perhaps with the
help of some aggressive driving. Or, point A might
be your workstation and point B anything â€” lunch,
a meeting, the parking lot, the warehouse, an
errand. We’re experts nowadays in the art of the
quick dash. Darting in and out. And in a flash the
dash can become a crash.

Running on empty

It’s draining, isn’t it? Racing to beat the school
bus home. Trying to remember who’s “on” for
picking up or dropping off the kids. Making next
day’s lunches and dinner at eleven at night. It’s
fatiguing especially when you don’t have downtime
for yourself. You and/or your employees might suffer
from fatigue-induced “presenteeism” â€” you’re
on the job but you’re not on your game, or on time,
or on the same page as co-workers.

It can be depressing not having enough time for
your children, your mate, and yourself. A large
proportion of the workforce shows signs of clinical
depression, according to the Families and
Work Institute report. More than a quarter (27
percent) of employees experienced sleep problems
that affected their job performance in the
last month, according to the study. Today, mental
health ills are still seriously stigmatized in the
workplace (“He’s unstable, he’s not reliable”).
And so they represent a silent, unspoken, untreated
risk in far too many cases.

Safety and health professionals, though, soldier
on. You’re a hardy, resilient breed. In our White
Paper survey, only 12 percent of you see your
personal job satisfaction taking a dive next year.
Almost one in three expect it to improve, despite
longer hours and more job distress. For the rest,
job satisfaction will remain status quo.

Many a pro has a philosophical side, dealing
daily with the attitudes, behaviors and beliefs of
unpredictable humans. Most pros, according to
our survey, are in their 40s and 50s. That’s plenty
of time to have acquired worldly wisdom (aka
cynicism or jadedness). Maybe they’ve learned to
accept today’s whirlwind world with equanimity.
Or maybe they’re simply too busy to think about it.

Events

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